Christmas Gifts For Teachers

In my Christmas in July series I posted tutorials for some handmade gifts that would suit teachers as well as other friends and family. In today’s post I am highlighting bought gifts that I think would work well for teachers. It isn’t always possible to have the time to make a gift, but it can get hard year after year thinking of something to buy for teachers that have played an important role in your child’s life.

World Vision Gifts For Schools

If a teacher has a class of 25 students they could quite possibly end up with a huge amount of small gifts from his/her class. For some teachers, they may love the idea of their gift being one that helps others.

World Vision have a category of gifts that are aimed at providing support for schools and teachers in developing countries, whether it be (click on image for more info):

$5 for pencils

or

$125 class gift to train a teacher

Quote Book: Inspire

This gorgeous quote book is from KikkiK. You could pretty much by anything from this store and it would work for a gift for teachers (I love KikkiK!). But as teachers are the ones who are inspiring our kids to learn in the class room everyday, I thought it seemed apt to give something that may help inspire them.

Journal

Est is one of my most favourite shops in Melbourne. I often just wander in to have a deep smell of the beautiful soaps they make. But they do sell other things than soaps, like these beautiful handmade journals.

Mugs

When I have spoken to teacher friends they all have told me they do love a good mug! Mozi sell gorgeous mugs, a number of which come in a beautiful tin that would make a lovely gift for teachers. Even a Christmas style one like pictured above.

Quality Tea or Coffee

Closely associated to the above point, but can be put together by your child and personalised. Last year I made jars of tea for some teachers who I knew liked to partake in a cup or two. You could do the same thing for coffee if you know that is what your child’s teacher likes to drink.

If you are giving Christmas gifts to your kids’ teachers this year, I would love to hear what you are planning to give?

Comments

I am thinking of getting pretty mugs and fill them with homemade cookies as presents for teachers. This way, my girls (6 and 12) can get involved in making the cookies are their contribution. Our class usually does a combined gift for the class teacher too.

Christmas year in year out is hard especially when you’re talking multiple teachers! It can get quite expensive and time consuming. We have been fortunate enough to find a few pals in the class who wanted to pitch in for a gift voucher. It means that the teacher is able to purchase something he/she needs rather than being inundated with lots of little bitty things. Last year my son’s class rep organised it and the teacher bought herself a leather bag…now that’s a lovely reminder of her 2011 grade 2 students!

Love the world vision gift idea! I asked another teacher at school what my kids teachers were into, one told me they loved to scrapbook so I will be getting a craft gift card. Last year I made beaded book marks which the kids helped with, quick, simple and handmade. I have also made beaded X-mas tree decorations. We had the same teachers this year as last year so I was scratching my head a little on what to do and one is an exchange teacher about to head back to Canada so the World Vision gift idea is great as she won’t need to pack it

While not a teacher, I did work in a school and was the lucky recipient of many lovely gifts at Christmas. I still have some of the lovely Christmas decorations hanging up on my tree each year. Consumables were also a big hit in my house (especially appreciated by my husband!). This year for my kindy daughters 5 (!) teachers & aides, we made jars of preserved lemons in August when we were inundated with lemons from our tree. I will print out a little book of recipes using preserved lemons (courtesy of many internet sites) which she can decorate. I love your ideas – maybe for next year!

I am a knitter, so I’m making some knitted flowers to put into a bunch for my boys to give their teachers this year. I figured flowers are nice, and how much nicer would they be if they can keep them! Hopefully they like them. I was looking for some other things too and your post has given me a few good ideas of what to put with the hand-made gift.

I’m a fan of Christmas Decorations – they’re low clutter, & only come out once a year (so it doesn’t matter so much if they’re not quite the right taste for the teacher in question!) & as a teacher myself, I love each year pulling out the decorations and remembering the families who gave them. I’m also a big fan of consumables… We would often have many boxes of chocs from gifts, which was great, they got hidden from dh & shared around with friends I love to sew, but with a little baby, might leave the hand-made gifts for a little while longer! Thanks for the ideas Nicole!

As a teacher, my favourite gift was a pair of long stripy socks. I wear them all the time (like from March to October) and the student in question had bothered to ask my shoe size (half the kids in my class had bigger feet than me and were quite fascinated by that so I didn’t think it was an odd question) and my favourite colours. Although they cam with a big basket of moisturiser and body wash etc, I loved the socks, because she’d thought about what I’d like and use.
The sentimental favourite was the signature bear (I was leaving the school) That student had given the bear the name of the house team we were both in (okay, I was responsible for) and gotten the whole class to sign it. She also wrote me a beautiful card, even though writing was really hard for her.

The last few years I have bought a nice plate and filled it with homemade shortbread which the kids help me make. With some clear cellophane and ribbon they always look gorgeous and taste good too! Love the idea of the ‘inspire’ book too.

My mum is a teacher and my brothers and I used to love the end of year when she’d come home with boxes of presents and we could help her open them. There were always lots of soaps and chocolates!
Last year I gave my daughters carers at crèche 2 movie tix each. They were very pleased!
Great ideas!

Last year we gave the girls teachers and therapists a Keep Cup each, I think that has been my most successful gift ever.

The teachers seem to use stacks of stationery from their own personal supply, so this year I’ve splashed out and gotten them cute stationery from The Kawaii Notebook.

Cost is always an issue for us because we have not only the teachers to buy for but the OT, speech therapist, aide (last year Heidi had 4 aides in her classroom all of whom worked with her at various stages). I want to say thank you to these amazing people who do so much to help my girls but I also need to not break our family budget doing so. Thus purchasing throughout the year really helps.

I did the movie ticket voucher last year for my son’s carers. I got them through RACQ which meant I could get them a bit cheaper and get two each for all the people who helped in his year-group.

As he’s three this year and more aware of present giving and what Christmas means, I like the idea of a mug with home-baked goodies. He can help me with the baking and learn about what it means to give.

I love the World Vision voucher idea. I might save that option for when I have a teacher to buy for that I know would be excited by that.

Last year we made star biscuits, decorated them and tied a ribbon on so they could be hung on a tree. Each biscuit was individually wrapped and I made a little sticker saying “Merry Christmas from (Child’s name)”. These were cheap enough to do that we were able to give them to room and subject teachers, aids, office and library staff as well as each student. (We allowed a couple of days to cook, decorate and wrap the cookies in stages – don’t try and do it all the night before). We also handmade everyone cards. (Which we did over a few weeks, six small cards at a time). I was going to make an additional gift like a fabric and glass noticeboard for his main teacher but didn’t get a chance to due to an illness in the family. We gave flowers instead. At Easter time we made rabbit cookies and put them in a mug filled with Easter eggs wrapped in cellophane for his main teacher and aid. They loved them. You could do something similar with Christmas themed cookies and chocolates. I’ve also given homemade fudge as thank you gifts in the past. A friend’s son once gave a decorated plate to his kindy teacher and she loved it.

Nicole Avery is a Melbourne mum to five beautiful kids aged 17 to 7. Nic is slightly addicted to spreadsheets, tea, running, CrossFit. Her goal for 2016 is to create space in her life for creativity and calm. Read More…